Cal Raleigh nominated for 2024 Silver Slugger award
Can Cal add another impressive accolade to his career year?
It was an eventful 24 hours for Cal Raleigh. Just a day after being awarded his first Gold Glove, he was announced as a finalist for the Silver Slugger award.
While it was pleasant to look back on Cal’s accomplishments defensively this past season, it’s equally impressive to look back on what he did offensively in 2024. He set personal career highs in homers (34) and RBI (100), which also set Mariners franchise records for a catcher. Not only were those 34 homers the most hit by any MLB catcher this season, the achievement put him in the record books as he passed Hall of Famers like Johnny Bench and Mike Piazza to record the most homers by a catcher in their first four seasons, with 93. He also made another entry in the Mariners record books, as the same homer that pushed him past Piazza pushed him past Alvin Davis for most home runs through a Mariner’s first four seasons. Oh, and no biggie, but he also became just the fourth catcher in MLB history with 30+ homers and 6+ stolen bases in a season, which put him into a group with a trio of Hall of Famers: Johnny Bench in 1979, Carlton Fisk in 1985, and the most recent, Ivan Rodríguez in 1999. That’s what speed do, baby. (Also, all Mariners fans know he should have had seven SBs this season. Justice for our power-speed threat catcher.)
While Cal was pretty much a lock for the Gold Glove at catcher, easily outpacing any other AL catcher in innings caught and ranking at or near the top of the leaderboard for almost every major category, he’s got a tougher slate of opponents for the Silver Slugger: Yainer Díaz (HOU), Salvador Pérez (KC), and Shea Langeliers (OAK - no, sorry, ATH now apparently). Raleigh’s closest comp in this group is Langeliers; both are three-true-outcome type sluggers who walk a lot, strike out a lot, and crush the ball when they do make contact. However, Cal walked more and bested Langeliers in homers (34 to 29), while seeing more high-leverage plate appearances; Cal has about a ten-point lead on Langeliers in wRC+, at 117 to 109. My feeling is Cal should be able to clear his AL West rival easily.
As for the other two, Salvador Pérez is the sentimental favorite, as the 34-year-old posted his best offensive season since 2021, hitting for both average and power with a wRC+ of 115. However, Pérez was in a time-share at catcher in Kansas City with Freddy Fermín, who Cal just beat out for a Gold Glove, and doesn’t have anywhere near the plate appearances as a catcher that the other members of the group do.
Yainer Díaz has the best argument next to Cal, as they’re tied in wRC+; Díaz has the better average by a lot, hitting .299 for the season to Cal’s .220ish, but that’s counterbalanced by his complete allergy to taking walks (sub-4% walk rate) and more modest power (just 16 home runs even in Baby’s First Ballpark, less than half of what Raleigh totaled hitting in the much more cavernous T-Mobile Park). Like Langeliers, Díaz hit lower in the powerful Astros lineup, meaning he also trailed Raleigh in RBI, collecting just 84 to Cal’s franchise record-setting 100.
My guess is that recency bias + Astros + the eye candy of an average approaching .300 tip the scales in Díaz’s favor, but I’d be very happy to be wrong. Here’s hoping the voting bloc is fans of Sarah Langs and/or Alex Mayer’s Twitter accounts, which both did excellent work tracking Cal’s path towards Mariners and MLB history this season. Win or lose, it was a record-setting year for the Big Dumper in a year where Mariners fans could use any silver (slugger) lining.
The Silver Slugger winners will be announced Tuesday, November 12, on MLB Network at 3 PM PT.